ST. LOUIS — You wouldn’t expect any team with Carlos Beltran on it to have a good night on Oct. 19. Six years ago on that date, Beltran was frozen by an Adam Wainwright curve ball for a called third strike as the Cardinals beat the Mets in Game 7 of the NLCS.
The Mets haven’t been back to the postseason since.
Here we are six years later and Beltran was back in the lineup for the Cardinals after missing most of the last two games with a sore left knee, both Cardinals victories, to build a 3-1 lead in the NLCS.
On a night the Cardinals could have closed out the Giants and advanced to the World Series to play the Tigers, a throwing error by starting pitcher Lance Lynn opened the flood gates and allowed the Giants to score four runs in the fourth on their way to a 5-0 victory at Busch Stadium as Barry Zito stepped up with his biggest game as a Giant.
The Giants now trail the Cardinals, 3-2, with the NLCS shifting back to San Francisco for Game 6 tomorrow night. This was the fourth straight elimination game on the road the Giants have won.
“We love that situation,’’ said Pablo Sandoval, who homered in the eighth.
No, it’s not easy to finish off these Giants. Before the game, the Giants got together in a team meeting and the players each offered words of encouragement.
“Like Hunter [Pence] said, ‘I want to see you guys another day,’ ’’ Sandoval said.
In the NLDS, the Giants shocked the Reds, winning three straight in Cincinnati after being pushed to the brink, and now they are trying to win three straight in the NLCS.
It has been such a wacky baseball postseason that anything is possible. From the Yankees being humiliated and swept away by the Tigers to the Cardinals’ amazing comeback against the Nationals to Zito being magnificent. This is the year the impossible is possible.
Zito was left off the roster each playoff series in 2010, but now he is a hero after throwing 7 2/3 scoreless innings.
“This definitely is the greatest for me,’’ Zito said of his first postseason win for the Giants.
It means former Giants managing partner Peter Magowan finally saw return on the $126 million Zito investment.
“Barry had his problems but to see him come up in a game like this, this game says a lot for his character,” Magowan said. “He is such a good guy.’
With one out and runners on first and second in a scoreless game in the fourth inning, Lynn induced Pence to hit a chopper to the first-base side of the mound. Lynn got to the ball and could have flipped to first for the easy out, but opted to try to nail the trail runner at second.
He caught shortstop Pete Kozma by surprise. Kozma was late getting to the bag and Lynn fired a sinker that hit second base and bounded into center field, allowing Marco Scutaro to score.
After a popup to second for the second out and a walk, Brandon Crawford singled up the middle for two more runs and Zito followed with a bunt single for the fourth run of the inning.
The Giants are doing all of this with smoke and mirrors, but that’s what makes it all so much fun.
“We’ve been through a lot this year,’’ said tough-guy Bruce Bochy, who would be perfectly suited to be a ship’s captain on “Deadliest Catch” if he were not Giants manager. “These guys, they’re fighters and this club has so much character. We’ve been through something like this and we’ve had our ups and downs, but I’ve said this so many times, how tough they are and how resilient they are.’’
The Giants have Ryan Vogelsong (Game 6) and Matt Cain (Game 7) lined up to start now at AT&T Park. They have never won a best-of-seven series after trailing, 3-1, but this year in baseball, the impossible is possible.